Take a look at these Lowe's Iris V3 motion sensors. I've had very good luck with them. They report motion, temp and humidity, and run on a CR123A battery which seems to last a really long time (compared to a lot of my other devices that take a CR2 battery). I use them outside, in my fridge, and also in my deep freeze and they work well. I have compared the accuracy of the the temp/humidity to a radioshack device and the correlate very closely.
I edited my post to remove a link. My link was only to a mount for them. Oops. The devices do pop up though on ebay if you watch for them.
Agree that Iris sensors work fine outdoors (I've been using the V2 contact and motion sensors outside in temps down to -15F with no issues and get 1-2 years on a CR2 battery). But I believe that eBay link is for the a 3D printed mount only and doesn't include the actual sensor.
Curious - do you do anything to protect them from rain/moisture, or are they sitting out fully exposed? I have some of the Iris motion detectors but just started using a v2 and v3 outside, and was wondering how delicate they are in terms of getting wet.
I put my MS-6 in an outlet cover.. easy to mount etc etc - something like this.. of course I don't really care about motion detection.. just illuminance.
Aside from the one I have mounted on the underside of my mailbox they hang from soffits / eaves outside; they get splashed with water from time to time when I clean the siding. I do put some Scotch Magic tape along the visible seams of the battery hatch, and a bit of GE silicone around the sensor opening.
By the way the Iris V2 contact sensors do great in the freezer (usually runs around -4F) and the attic (>120F in the summer). They do well as a contact sensor too!
Born almost couple decades earlier, but in my fabled youth we lived in VA in a neighborhood littered w/garrison overhang style homes. Imagine my shock when we moved to CA and I realized that all homes didn't look like that.
i have a smartsense multisensor v4 in the mailbox.. no protection other than the mailbox..
i have to change the battery about 2x a year..
i have a cheaper ecolink zigbee contact sensor on the gate just for temp.. since that is outside in the open i have it in a zip lock back.. i change that battery same about twice a year it goes dead.
just using it for temp.. too bad you cannot get those anymore i found the range great and got like 12 of them for 50 bucks.
I’m sure the OP has found something suitable by now, but if not…
I also use the v3 Iris motion sensor which runs on a CR123A battery (v2 doesn’t report humidity, and some chew through the CR2 battery at a rate of 1-2 per month. I’ve observed a very long battery life operating outside (under an overhang so not directly exposed to rain) at my cabin at over 10,000 feet/3100 meters. Temperatures get quite cold. I also use a generic (GoControl, I think, but there are lots of clones) Z-Wave PIR motion sensor outdoors that gives me good temperature readings but no humidity.
If it doesn’t have to be native to Hubitat, I also recommend the netatmo weather station. Integration via cloud works great. The kit (indoor + outdoor modules) are somewhat expensive at retail, but they are frequently on eBay in the $70-$100 range which makes them cost competitive with some sophisticated smart sensors. Plus you get the benefit of knowing indoor air quality (CO2 concentration, in particular). For my cabin which is buttoned up tight for insulation and efficiency, knowing the CO2 level is important and tells us when to open a window…
Actually, due to covid I haven't been able to travel to the cabin yet...and I think this is a topic that is always worth keeping an eye on. Actually just today one of my aqaras dropped off, after being stable for over a year, seems like you just can't trust them.
Found a new candidate when browsing Zoozs webpage. ZSE44 I ordered one to test. This is a z-wave sensor available in both EU and US frequencies. Couldn't find info about battery life. Anyone tested this so far?
If you want something a bit different, you could try SensorPush. Not Zigbee or Z-Wave, these sensors communicate via bluetooth with an app on your phone or with a gateway that allows remote monitoring and sensor readings to be stored in the cloud. They store close to a months worth of readings on the sensor itself, these readings then sync with your phone when you are in range and / or get uploaded to their cloud storage if using the gateway.
Battery life is about two years, and I can back that up myself, perhaps even longer, but a CR2477 isn't cheap. Neither are the sensors or the gateway...
They seem to have expanded the range since I bought mine, they now include pressure and other conditions, as well as waterproof versions.
I like the idea, like my Hue lights, that this is both self-contained system, but also something I have been able to integrate with my HE hub, though sadly using the cloud. I wrote a driver that downloads the current readings from the cloud periodically to a virtual device on my HE hub. These readings then get pumped out to InfluxDB / Grafana for charting. I plan to eventually sync any readings from the cloud that are missed, but have not started work on that yet.
